


Cloak and Shelter

by SLWalker



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Demisexuality, Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 19:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: After a bad case, Dani finds some shelter on Alderaan.





	Cloak and Shelter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [B_Radley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/gifts).



> Dani belongs to B_Radley and is written here with love. This will probably eventually be canon for Game of Thrones: Alderaan, but a lot happens before this, so this is pretty wildly out of context for now. It also has plenty of layers in it; if you can spot them all, I've done my job well. If none of the above bothers you, enjoy!

Watching the snow fall on Aldera was oddly hypnotic.

The streets and walks were built with heat-elements under them, warming them enough to melt it, and the city's storm drains were designed such to capture the runoff and keep everything safe to walk on. From there, if she remembered her impromptu lessons correctly, it went through a water treatment facility before being sent on to Aldera Lake, removing any pollutants that might have been flushed along.

Dani thought that littering laws on Alderaan could probably keep an entire precinct of peacekeepers busy; Alderaanians were obsessive about the environment.

At times like this, she wondered if she could transfer here. Where capital crime was rare. Where peacekeeping really was what their police forces focused on, to the point of taking on the title.

She knew she wouldn't. Most of the time, she took a fierce pride in CorSec and in her commission. In the job she did, the _good_ she did, the lives she saved, the criminals she stopped. She was suited for her chosen career; capable of balancing the heartbreak she often encountered with the knowledge of the good she did, capable of keeping it in perspective.

But sometimes--

Meg wasn't here at the diner; she had gotten invited to go with Queen Breha to a summit on Chandrila. When she got the comm from Dani, her face had crumbled a little and Dani watched her hands twitch as if she longed to reach out, even in hologram form, to make up for her absence. Dani reassured her up and down; she probably should have called before taking a side-trip to Alderaan, but she hadn't thought to and that wasn't Meglann's fault.

The relief staff brought her a huge tray of food -- including a tower of pancakes and winterberries, stuffed with whipped cream -- and refused to give her a check, but Dani was having a hell of a time actually eating more than the bare minimum. She knew she had to replace the calories she'd used, she couldn't biologically _afford_ to skip too many meals and she'd already been surviving on ration bars for two days, but the way her stomach churned whenever she tried to take any kind of enthusiasm in the prospect made it much harder.

She was just about to apologetically ask for some boxes to take the rest with her -- Tal would like the pancakes and Ahsoka would probably _love_ the nerf steak and egg platter -- when the bell on the door rang and she could feel the echo off of her resonance of the only empath who she knew that lived on this world.

In typical Aldera fashion, Maul wore a cloak; this one trimmed in the thick silver-gray fur that was a near-perfect imitation of the fur of a manka cat's winter ruff. He tossed the hood of it back, standing on the floor mat just inside, tilting his head at Dani with a semi-bemused smile. "Your girl called to tell me she was worried about you, and then her staff called me to tell me they were _very_ worried about you," he said, pointing with his chin in the direction of her mostly full tray. "I can see why."

Dani gave a little scoff back, though seeing him did get a smile out of her. "Reputations of me being a living food vacuum can be exaggerated."

Maul snorted. "Right. I've seen what you can do to a buffet, you won't convince me." He wiped his boots and then stepped over, sitting down across from her and raising his brows. "What's going on?"

Dani rested her elbows on the table, sweeping her hair back with both hands, and then just shook her head. It wasn't that she _wouldn't_ talk, but she just-- couldn't yet. When Maul nodded back in understanding, she took a moment and picked up the tepid tea she'd been sipping at to finish it. "As much as I like seeing you, I'm not so sure I needed a babysitter."

"You're a lot of things, but I wouldn't ascribe the term 'baby'."

The quip that bubbled up died on Dani's tongue before she could spit it out, and when she didn't rise to the bait, Maul's expression went more concerned. She gestured to the waitress, one of House Syrush's young teenagers, and asked for the food to be packed up, and then finally she looked back at the zabrak who was watching her in worry. "I'm sorry. It's just been-- a rough week," she said, apologetically, and she wasn't quite sure why her throat felt so thick as she said it.

"That's not something you should be apologizing for." Maul squinted a bit at her, as if he could peer through her and see what was wrong. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it, but don't go running off back to Corellia yet. Stay a bit, come walking with me?"

The thing was, Dani knew Maul wouldn't push her to open up about it. Just like, once they'd had their first hike, she dropped any and all investigation into who he had been in his past life; if he wanted to ever tell her, then he would, and she grew to respect him far too much to demand it. Who he was now was her friend, maybe someday with several benefits, and that was all that mattered.

She also knew that he was offering to make it easy for her to talk about things if she wanted to.

"Yeah," she said, standing up and taking the bag when it was brought back, making sure she left a large tip on the table to make up for them refusing to give her a check.

 

 

 

"I'm _swimming_ in this," she said, peering out from under the hood of his cloak as they walked, the evening light low blue-gray and the warm lights of the shops and restaurants casting a soft yellow glow out into the steady snowfall.

She hadn't exactly been _planning_ on stopping on Alderaan and hadn't been dressed for the cold, though before, she hadn't really felt it; the second she shivered, Maul had his cloak off of himself and on her, despite her protest. But it was the first time she'd laughed in days, and even if that meant dragging the hem of it and feeling like she was drowning in the heavy dark-blue fabric, she was grateful as hell for it.

He was wearing a heavy tunic and didn't seem terribly bothered; it wasn't bitter out, just under freezing, so she believed him when he said he was fine.

"But in a very endearing way," Maul said back, with a tongue-in-cheek grin. "The fashion suits you."

Dani rolled her eyes, side-stepping just to bump her shoulder off of his; not only was she wearing his cloak, but he was carrying her food. "It figures you'd try to get me into _more_ fabric."

"Oh, yes, obviously my big concern is modesty while you're in uniform." He crooked his arm, though, when she slipped a hand around his elbow.

"You're literally the only male I know who tries to put more clothes on me, instead of take them off. Absent ones I'm directly related to."

"We all have our hobbies."

Dani chuckled, shaking her head; turned out walking had been a good idea. She felt better, not just for the motion and the crisp air, but for someone to chat with and something else to think about. Something to distract herself from the news she'd gotten before she'd even been back in Republic space. It hovered around the outside edges of her thoughts, like a viper waiting to strike, but for the moment she had set it aside. "Autumn doesn't last long here, does it? It feels like it was just summer."

"A short season, given our orbit. I'm fond of all of it, but I sometimes wish it would last a little longer." Maul shrugged. "In the First Range, it's all color for half a month or so, until the leaves finish falling."

Dani smiled at the thought; Corellia was temperate too, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd really gone out into the wilder parts of it just for the sake of enjoyment. "Ours is longer, you should come and see it."

"Sometime, I probably will." Maul tipped his head, looking up at the lazy flakes coming down, sparkling in the cast-off light. "I'm afraid I'm a bit of a homebody. If one can call an entire world home, anyway."

That much, Dani could take as fact; in the time she'd known him, he hadn't left Alderaan once and didn't seem to have any kind of wanderlust beyond the world's orbit. Though, she knew enough of events before her coming to foil some greasy assholes to know he had been offworld more than once, and that the last time he was, it cost him a heart and ended up with the now-Viceroy bringing home a Jedi.

"Well, I swear I'll show you a dynamite time with the minimum of criminal apprehension and casework," she said, giving his arm a squeeze.

Maul laughed at that. "No promises this time?"

Dani shrugged, still grinning. "Trouble follows me, I don't want to make one I can't keep. That way, if no one kriffs it up, it'll be a pleasant surprise."

"Fair enough."

Evenings in Aldera were bustling, usually; the city was renowned for its restaurants and specialty shops, especially on the boulevard leading to the palace's plaza. For being such a large city, it felt small; the way it was built into the world instead of forced onto it gave it a small-town feel, though Dani had certainly seen enough of it now thanks to her-- varied interests here to know that it really was fairly big. A lot of the technical structure, the utilities and systems that distributed power and handled trash and recycling and everything else, had been built underneath of it, which left the surface for business, government and housing.

The boulevard was prime real estate; the finest in the galaxy often tried to score a place there. Meglann was happy over in the University District, but even she had mentioned someday maybe trying for the local lottery when something came up. Per Alderaanian law, two-thirds of the real estate in Aldera belonged to her citizenry; getting a place wasn't easy, but it wasn't impossible.

"How's the stomach?" Maul asked, breaking into her thoughts about her girl maybe becoming one of the big-shots who landed a spot near the Palace someday, though not in any unwelcome manner.

Dani thought about it, but after a moment winced a little. "Not as bad as it was, but I still don't think I can pack away my leftovers."

Maul nodded, thoughtfully, then nodded ahead. "I think I know something that can help."

 

 

 

His solution to her problem was more tea.

"Let me get this straight," Dani asked, holding the warm mug between her hands, "you grow most of the local tea?"

He nodded back, quirking his brow with an easy smile. "Another hobby. I don't charge anyone for it, so long as they don't make any demands of me in terms of stock."

Well, it probably didn't make business sense, but it was charming anyway. Dani took a slow sip from the mug; she could taste a few different things in it. Black tea, infused with something a little citrus-y, along with the distinctive bite of ginger and a delicate floral-honey flavor the likes of which she'd never had before. There even seemed to be a kind of mint involved, which blended surprisingly well with the other flavors.

It was making the lingering queasiness better, too.

Apparently Maul was well-known enough that he could just walk into the back of the shop they had stopped at -- a small business called Turn Another Leaf -- and make her up a mug. After listening into him chatting with the owner of the business, an older woman with dark eyes and her silvery hair done up in a crown of elaborate braids, the subject seemed intuitive. Though, Dani had to duck her head and hide under the hood of his cloak when the woman had grabbed him by his sleeve and pulled him down to ear-level to tell him, _sotto voce,_ "She's a very pretty girl, Maul."

Maul had nodded back, and agreed with a solemness that was almost comical, and then carefully extricated himself. Dani decided to hold onto that one for awhile and use it to poke at him later on.

"All right, I'll bite. Besides environmental protection, logging permits, tea growing and educational programming, what do you do?" she asked, eying him across the table.

"Not counting providing entertainment for the gossip columnists?"

"Depends on how intentionally you do it."

"Professionally speaking, my technical title would be Investigator for the Ministry of Natural Resources."

Dani raised an eyebrow at that. "I'm surprised you're not Minister."

Maul shook his head, rather emphatically. "I don't care much for bureaucracy; much better to wait until they need someone who likes going into the field and let them handle the paperwork after. Besides, it's a part-time position and mostly involves me chasing down leads on invasive species."

Dani eyed him up and down, jokingly. "I'll let you look for my knives if you'll let me look for your badge."

Back behind the counter where she was hand-bagging tea for sale, the woman started laughing at them, head thrown back, the bright peals of it surprising and wonderful to hear. Maul groaned a little, rubbing at his face, and then shook his head with a chuckle. "Now who's keeping the gossip columnists in a job? I don't carry it unless I'm working, so it'd be a futile search anyway."

"You realize that's not the point right?" she asked, grinning widely. "It's not the destination, it's the journey."

He rolled his eyes, then tapped a finger in front of her mug. "Enough flirtation, just drink your tea."

Not to be outdone, Dani did raise her mug, but she made sure he was watching while she flicked her tongue light against the rim, as if chasing a stray drop.

Basking in his laughter while he buried his face in his hands made that entirely worth it, even after they were outside again and he informed her that it was Lady Breanna Antilles that she had just been so audaciously flirting with him in front of.

 

 

 

Coming around to talking about things that hurt was never easy. Dani considered herself more-- open than most about things, her people were an emotional people and embraced that part of themselves, but even then it wasn't easy to just open up and pour it all out. Most of the time -- all of the time -- she would rather be the shoulder to lean on than the one doing the leaning, not because there weren't people who loved her and would help, but because she just didn't like making them _feel_ that way.

She didn't like knowing that their care for her would lead to them suffering her hurts alongside her.

"I was working on a smuggling case," she started, after they'd been walking awhile, now through the gardens around the palace; the fresh winterberries they'd picked were the first thing she'd managed to eat in days that didn't make her stomach churn uneasily, though now that she was talking, it started up again. "Narcotics, in this case. We, uh-- we managed to execute a warrant and get the guy's database. It turned out that wasn't all he was doing wrong, though."

Even if she was swimming in it, she was grateful for the cloak around her; even though it wasn't the cold air provoking it, she could bury her shiver in the fabric.

Maul didn't ask questions, just listened; he tended to nearly vanish from her empathic perception now that he knew how to wall himself off from her resonance, but right now, she could feel his attention on her and knew she had the entirety of it. It was a comforting feeling; the sense of having as much time as she needed to order her thoughts and no expectation that they would be particularly together or eloquent.

Dani chewed her lip a little, then heaved out a breath. "He had slaves. Two-- two little twi'lek girls, chained up in a room. Young ones. And he'd just-- just left them there to starve," she said, her voice cracking a little at the memory. "We got the medics on scene fast and sent them to the hospital, but they were-- they were just--" She shook her head, as if she could force the words to come without the mental images. "We had his shipping schedule and he didn't know we'd served the warrant, so we were able to go after him fast enough to intercept him. On the way back, my-- the Dragon called and told me one of-- one of the girls hadn't made it."

She hadn't realized they'd stopped walking; all she could see in her mind was the filth crusted to their orange skin, and the hollow misery in their eyes, and she could feel the echo of their hopelessness and despair as keenly as if it were her own.

They couldn't have been older than six.

"He just left them there, chained in a dark room," she said, trying to swallow down the sharp pitch of pain in her tone and failing, choking on the words, "and now one of them is never going to know what it's like to see light again and have a full belly, and-- _kriff._ "

By the time she was aware of anything again beyond the desperate force of her own tears, body wracked like she'd been in a speeder wreck, it was only that Maul was practically holding her up, and that her face was buried in his chest, and that she could feel the awful echo of understanding from the other side of his ribcage, and somewhere in all of that, the lifeline of his breath warm against the top of her scalp murmuring reassurance.

 

 

 

It figured that was how she got to spend the night with him for the first time; not rolling around in a bed laughing, but instead being sheltered.

Her head had been pounding terribly and her stomach was upset again, since she couldn't fathom the thought of sitting down to a meal when those girls had been starving, but she was so wrung out and soul-sick by that point that she didn't even think to complain when Maul just picked her up and carried her inside; she'd just wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders and hid her face. What conversation followed was limited; it turned out Bail had gone to Chandrila himself, and that she was going to stay over, and Maul would let her father know she was safe and being looked after.

If she were in any better shape, Dani would have quipped about it or maybe channeled some Corellian snark, but instead, she just changed into a borrowed t-shirt and brushed her teeth and spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch-bed in front of the fireplace, at first giving vent to the misery of the past week, soaking his shoulder with tears, then dozing in and out, and finding some odd comfort in _offering_ comfort, projecting reassurance every time Maul jerked himself awake for the proximity of someone he wasn't used to sleeping with.

By the time sunrise had come around, they had both finally fallen into a deep enough sleep to do them some good; by the time the sun was high enough for the light to come in through the window, Dani felt about as good as she could after this past week. Not deeply good. But not so deeply awful.

The viper in the shadows had already bitten; now, all she could do was survive the venom.

She drifted awake to Maul playing with her curls, head still tucked into the hollow of his shoulder; his t-shirt was a bit stiff from her tears, but she pressed closer anyway, squeezing her eyes closed against the sting in them. "Of all the ways to get you into a bed," she said, voice quivering a little bit.

He huffed at her, sliding his hand up to rub his thumb in soothing circles against her temple. "I think technically _I_ got  _you_ into this one."

"Smooth operator." Dani huffed right back at him, then tightened the arm she'd wrapped around his ribs a little. "I-- thank you. For-- for this."

There was a long moment, where his thumb stilled. Then, to her surprised, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head; chaste, maybe, but intimate. And warm. "You don't have to thank me, Dani. I'm glad to." A beat. "And I'm glad-- in ways I don't think I can describe, that there are people like you in this galaxy."

She could feel the layers of that statement; not just the tone, but untold stories of scars she'd likely never get to trace. But more than that, she could feel the truth of them and that was why she nodded and turned her face into his shoulder and cried all over again.

This time purging the pain, too.

 

 

 

They slept off and on past noon; once the last of her tears had dried, Dani could feel the scabs forming over the invisible wounds, and when she did wake up for the last time, she woke up with a settled stomach. She still felt sore internally, could feel the emotional beating she'd taken almost like a physical thing, but it was the soreness of healing instead of bleeding.

Having charming, multi-talented company helped, too.

"I could have just eaten leftovers," she said, legs folded under her in one of the armchairs bordering the small kitchen that apparently had been an addition by the Organas when they moved into the royal suite. Neither of them had bothered to dress for the day yet, but despite the fact that she was hanging around the innermost sanctuary of the royal family of Alderaan in nothing but an over-sized t-shirt and her underwear, she felt comfortable and cared for, and not like the intruder she might have felt like even a couple of months ago.

"No, you couldn't," Maul answered, half-grinning sheepishly. "I left them in the Gardens overnight, I'm fairly sure they've been cleared away."

That got Dani laughing; before she went home, she'd probably go back to the diner and order carry-out for Tal and Ahsoka, then, since she was having breakfast cooked for her here. She didn't feel safe yet eating her usual style meal -- which _could_ fairly be called a buffet -- but it was relief to see those pancakes stacking up on the plate and actually want them.

Well, okay, it was a toss-up which she wanted more: The pancakes or the gorgeous zabrak making them.

She let her eyes run over him from horn-tip to toe-tip, tilting her head to admire the way his sleep pants were riding low on his hips, and even as she could feel her eyes go black, he mostly vanished from her perception again and gave her a look like he was peering over a pair of half-rims.

"Now I know you're feeling better," Maul said, setting the skillet in the sink and bringing the plate over to her.

"You can't blame me." Dani took the plate, shifting in the seat in order to get comfortable with it, arching an eyebrow back at him. "Beauty, brains, and you can cook. Who can resist that? I have a type, and you're definitely it."

He rolled his eyes at her, though it was pretty clearly an affectionate kind of exasperation. "Laying it on a bit thick, Dani."

Dani speared a piece of pancake and pointed at him with it, grinning more broadly. "I'll lay it on thick, thin, in layers-- any way you want, any time you want."

"Maybe not in front of the in-laws next time," Maul winced, jokingly graphic, then went back to wash the skillet. "I'm sure this morning's paper is something else already."

Once he was done cleaning up and settled in the chair opposite with his own (much smaller stack of) pancakes, she reached out to poke him in the knee with her big toe. "I could stick around for a few days and we could give them an actual scandal to talk about," she said, waggling her eyebrows in the most exaggerated manner she could.

Maul stared at her, then laughed. He was still shaking his head and grinning when he said, "I have my mother plotting our children and Bre's mother is now likely planning our wedding. Mind your breakfast before they think to claim we're already hiding our illegitimate love-child."

 

 

 

"I like that boy. Only one I've met that's trying to put clothes on you instead of take 'em off."

Dani laughed at that, pulling on the cloak she'd been sent and fastening it under her chin. The violet fabric was just as heavy and fine as the one Maul had lent her, and the fur around the hood was a warm brown that turned golden when the light hit it; it was definitely Alderaanian in styling, and just as certainly tailored just for her.

She knew her father was only ribbing her, playing to stereotype; he'd never once shamed her for her Zeltron heritage, even if he occasionally winced when he got too much of an eyeful of her or her exploits. That didn't stop her from sticking her tongue out at him, then looking down over the cloak draped over her. "It's apparently as much his hobby to dress me as it is mine to try to undress him," she quipped back, and then snickered when Draq' grimaced with exaggerated pain.

It had been a week since she had come back; after leaving the palace, she'd gone back to the diner for carry-out (and an extra order of finger-food for her) and then had steeled herself and come back home. In the days since then, she had helped coordinate the case against the smuggler and had visited the surviving girl, finding her way back to a state of readiness.

To serve and to protect.

The girl had been traumatized, mute and devastated, but they were already searching to see if she had any remaining family left out there, and in the meantime, she had the best care that social services could give her. Even as bad off as she was, she seemed to take comfort in Dani's visit and the warmth and reassurance of Dani's resonance; Dani had sat holding her hand for an hour, just talking about what was going to happen next, how she would have a foster family to help her and counselors and doctors, and telling her that she was safe and that Dani was going to make sure she stayed that way.

Dani mourned the lost sister, and took comfort in the fact that someone not terribly far away who knew something of that suffering believed in her and what she was doing.

Now, she wiggled her shoulders in the cloak and took out the holo copy of the Aldera Advocate, only to start giggling at the ever more wild speculations in the gossip columns that had been run since she'd been on Alderaan.

**Could There Be a Secret Love-Child? Go to 3C for the evidence!**

The only thing better than that was Draq's reaction when he read it.


End file.
